Getting away from AQ with an A on the flop

[ismisus]

Is this possible? I was playing the 50 NL party tourney. I had a stack of 3000, the guy who took me out also had 3000. We were both leaders of our table, he played pretty solid poker. The blinds were 25/50. He limps UTG+2. I raise 200. He calls. The flop is A 5 2. He checks, I bet pot, he re-raises me all in. I call, thinking its a steal. He has AK. How can I get away from my hand? Would you have folded?

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this possible? I was playing the 50 NL party tourney. I had a stack of 3000, the guy who took me out also had 3000. We were both leaders of our table, he played pretty solid poker. The blinds were 25/50. He limps UTG+2. I raise 200. He calls. The flop is A 5 2. He checks, I bet pot, he re-raises me all in. I call, thinking its a steal. He has AK. How can I get away from my hand? Would you have folded?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it's a little player dependent, but this sure looks like AK or 2 pair to me. If I knew they guy was a nut and would do this with a number of aces I might feel like I had to call, but against a reasonable opponent, yeah, I think I could lay this down to that big honkin overbet.

[nolanfan34]

I probably would have expected to see a set of 5s here. I see people limp a lot with low-mid PP's, and call a PF raise with them (especially if others have limped/called). So, based on your read of the guy, I think I could lay this down. If you think he's solid he had to call your PF raise with some sort of hand.

Of course that's easy to say when I can sit here and think about it. In the 20 seconds Party gives you, I'd probably think I'm ahead here too.

[fnurt]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this possible? I was playing the 50 NL party tourney. I had a stack of 3000, the guy who took me out also had 3000. We were both leaders of our table, he played pretty solid poker. The blinds were 25/50. He limps UTG+2. I raise 200. He calls. The flop is A 5 2. He checks, I bet pot, he re-raises me all in. I call, thinking its a steal. He has AK. How can I get away from my hand? Would you have folded?

[/ QUOTE ]

Limping with AK is unusual, but the overall situation is not. Your raise preflop represented AK, or to be more accurate, at least gives your opponents reason to fear that hand.

When you have AK, and get check-raised all-in on an A-high or K-high flop, you are usually beaten, most often by a set. In this case, you don't have AK, but your opponent doesn't know that. So the conclusion is the same - you are usually behind here.

If I had been in your shoes and called, I would have been surprised to see AK, but I wouldn't have been surprised at all by the result.

[Aloysius]

I can see how the massive overbet of the pot might smell like a bluff... but I think that it's not too difficult to give him credit for AK or a set.

He was also UTG+2, right? I feel like there are a wide range of hands, including AK and middle-small pocket pairs, that someone might limp with and call a moderate raise.

[MichaelOar]

Good advice!

For the OP, Here's a similar hand I played at the WSOP:

Blinds are 600/1200 w/200 ante.

I have AKs in the SB.

All fold to cutoff who raises to 4800. I'm thinking maybe a steal here, so I reraise to 9000 (this may have been a mistake, maybe shoulda raised to about 12k). Anyway, he thinks a bit then calls me.

Flop comes:

Ac Qd 8h

I bet 15k into the pot, cutoff raises me all-in (about 30k more). I had him covered, but would have been left with only about 8k in chips. I think for about five minutes then finally lay my hand down. Graciously, the guy shows me AQo. I personally put him on QQ, but AQ would have been equally disasterous.

So, to answer the OP's question, yes, you could have mucked there---but in the early goings of a party $50 tourney, your AQ is probably going to be ahead more often than not.

Michael

[Grivan]

I don't see anyone raising with less then AK here. Depending on how the guy has been playing earlier in the tournament I think I would seriously consider folding in this position.